Girl Talk: Defining Moments in Adulthood*

*or what we are passing off as adulthood

1) No longer being afraid of the gynecologist.

2) Being flattered and not offended when someone at the store calls you “Miss”. Damn right you call me Miss when I’m buying my $5 bottle of white zin.

3) Buying the extra big bottle of $6 white zin and feeling damn good about it.

4) Realizing that face wash is something you can now allow yourself to spend more than $10 on. Really, it’s for your health. Splurge for the 30+ shit.

5) No longer apologizing to the guy you are dating/sleeping with for having your period at inopportune times. If he doesn’t know how female’s cycles work by now, he isn’t mature enough to put it in you.

6) Realizing that it is no longer acceptable to show up to your job, school, or internship with a fully blackened stamp from a club/bar from the night before still on your hand.

7) At two am when the 7-11 clerk asks you if you are ‘just getting off’ reply confidently with ‘nope, just needed some cat food’ and drop that bag of meow mix on the table.

8) When you no longer care that the guy who can get you free drinks at bar x, y, or z can get you free drinks at bar x, y, or z. instead, you want to talk to his friend who is getting his masters in environmental science or is working as an engineer for the state. 

Girl Talk #4: The Cost of The Spark

Here is a significant problem I’ve observed in my romantic history: if there seems to be a lack of “the spark” I convince myself that I’m settling for something I feel mediocre for, when really I should be searching for this illusive spark that seems to avoid me.

 For example, at the ripe and experienced age of 19 I was dating a wonderful gent who can best be described as perfect on paper. He was attractive, graduated from college, had a great job, was immensely creative and talented, and cared for me probably more than any person ever.  When he got up for work in the morning he’d let me sleep in and leave little notes in my purse. Even recalling all of these things now makes me wonder what the hell was wrong with me for not being able to sustain my feelings in that relationship. What more could I possibly need? The answer: the spark. The butterflies in the stomach, the tightening in your throat when for just a second you panic around them for no reason at all.  I could sit in a dark theater watching a movie with Zach Braff and feel electricity in my heart and know that that feeling was what I was missing in my real life relationship. But that’s the problem: it’s real life. Maybe these feelings that fictional characters provoked in me don’t exist in real life.

But then you get older, you realize that the butterflies that happen when you first meet someone don’t  live through the duration, sometimes not even through the month. Should we be practical and allow ourselves to settle into a nice, comfy love? Even though we’ve let the spark leave? It seems like the adult thing to do. Look for something that’s good enough.

Until it hits you. For whatever reason, you meet a stranger and your heart sparks. It feels like someone is using jumper cables to restart your battery after the starter has clicked and turned over and over but refuses to power up all the way.  And then it does.  But this person who makes you spark is the opposite of the perfect on paper ex-boyfriend. However, one key BIG fact that people tend to forget when they talk about the magic of  “the spark” is the negative that goes along with it. You feel the spark when you speak, but when there is silence it feels like a dagger in your side. Every second that falls off you can feel your heart cracking a little more. It sucks, really. You feel ridiculous, how can you let someone so effortlessly make you feel used up and unworthy? Is it your own insecurity that is propelling this or are they really just treating you badly? The lines get so incredibly blurred that you can’t tell which way is up. But the second they pop back up, the spark is enough to light up your heart again and make it feel brand new.  However, it leaves you wondering just how much of this you can take before you loose yourself and become an emotional punching bag. But…you have the best pain meds money can buy. And there’s no fun in love if you don’t have a few bruises after, right?

Is the spark worth it, even if it’s harder and it hurts more? 

Girl Jams: Of Monsters and Men’s “Little Talks”

We here at GTB (ok, me specifically) cannot get enough of this song. And having recently watched the video, I am even more impressed. The director uses a very specific artistic direction that feels reminiscent of “Tonight, Tonight” by the Smashing Pumpkins, a song and video that holds a very, very special place in my heart. When I first started watching Mtv there were three videos I used to watch religiously and tape every time they came on, that being one of them. Along with “Ironic” by Alanis Morissette (big surprise), and “Crossroads” by Bone Thugs. 

Despite the remarkable look of this video, the music and lyrical content is just fantastic. I’m a huge fan of any song that appears to be a conflicting conversation between two people, or seemingly two parts of one’s self. Probably because I feel like my head and heart are constantly at war while my body dangles helplessly in limbo. Part of you strongly refusing to give in to past weaknesses while the second part comfortingly manipulates you into making the same mistakes again. This. Is. Relevant. 

You know it’s a good song when the chorus first hits and you want to suddenly cry with no idea why, but you’re thankful and happy about it.

Simply put, the song takes you on a emotional journey that the video accurately depicts. 

RE: Spilling Your Guts

About a week ago I received an email in response to Girl Talk #2: Spill your guts or swallow them whole?, which I admittedly sat on for a few days because of the overwhelming distractions brought on by the impending doom that is South by Southwest. A girls gotta get her outfit catalogue together, amiright? THINK of how many potential boyfriends or girlfriends will be in town! 

However, once I got my act together and dove into this interesting reader reply, I was pleasantly surprised. And a little disarmed. 

About a year ago a friend sent me this and it really dug into me: http://walrusmagazine.com/article.php?ref=2008.12-poetry-regret-troy-jollimore *

Err on the side of making a fool of yourself, I say — err on the side of too much, not too little, because we all get over the stupid things we’ve done in time, but you never really get over the things you didn’t do, or didn’t try.

The idea of holding something in for fear of seeing it in public, now seems a little silly to me. Especially when that something you’d be holding in is something like love. Even if it wasn’t love, just a completely honest feeling for another person. If someone is capable of provoking these feelings from you so effortlessly, then shouldn’t they also be unquestionably worthy of knowing it? That was the dilemma that sparked my initial post opening up that discussion. 

(Sidenote: can I just take a second and say how STOKED I am that someone contributed a response? THANK YOU SO MUCH. I also apologize for saying stoked. I’ve been home visiting my parents the past few days, and I come from a beach town. It’s not my fault, I swear.) 

I thought of the possibility of rejection, I thought of the possibility of feelings being hurt or embarrassment, and of course I even thought of the potential requited love. But never in my endless internal argument with myself, did I think of the possibility of not being able to get over something that I had not done. Erring on the side of too much over too little. Wouldn’t it be refreshing if we all just made a fool of ourselves once in a while?

I’d like to take back my not saying to you 
those things that, out of politeness, or caution, 
I kept to myself. And, if I may — 
though this might perhaps stretch the rules —I’d like 
to take back your not saying some of the things 
that you never said, like “I love you” and “Won’t you 
come home with me,” or telling me, which 
you in fact never did, perhaps in the newly 
refurbished café at the Vancouver Art 
Gallery as fresh drops of the downpour from which 
we’d sought shelter glinted in your hair like jewels, 
or windshields of cars as seen from a plane 
that has just taken off or is just coming in 
for a landing, when the sun is at just the right angle, 
that try as you might, you could not imagine 
a life without me. The passionate spark 
that would have flared up in your eye as you said this — 
if you had said this —I dream of it often. 
I won’t take those back, those dreams, though I would, 
if I could, take back your not kissing me, openly, 
extravagantly, not caring who saw, 
or those looks of anonymous animal longing 
you’d throw everyone else in the room. I’d like 
to retract my retracting, just before I grabbed you, 
my grabbing you on the steps of the New York 
Public Library (our failure to visit 
which I would also like to recall) 
and shouting for all to hear, “You, you 
and only you!” Yes, I’d like to take back 
my not frightening the pigeons that day with my wild 
protestations of uncontrolled love, my not scaring 
them off into orbit, frantic and mad, 
even as I now sit alone, frantic and mad, 
racing to unread the book of our love 
before you can finish unwriting it. 

Girl Jams: Bishop Allen’s “Dimmer”

Sigh. Alright, in case you haven’t heard of this band, they are amazing. Seriously. And I just happen to have a remarkably strong emotional attachment to them. The singer, Justin Rice, is in two of my favorite indie films, Mutual Appreciation and Harmony and Me (which is streaming on Netflix! So watch it! And he happens to star along side one of the most complicated objects of my affection, which you’ll undoubtedly read about on this blog. A lot.)

This is such a sweet little song. You’ll love it.

Girl Talk #2: Spill your guts or swallow them whole?

Everyone has seen that moment, whether it be in a TV show or movie, where one brave person throws all caution to the wind, and tells a second person that they are completely in love with them. After keeping it locked away, or suddenly realizing, or finally just saying for the first time, this person decides to say “Fuck it! I’m going to tell this person that I love them. Completely, totally, with all my heart, and I don’t care. I don’t care if you love me back or not. I just need to let you know that I love you. A silly, ridiculous type of love, that if I keep it inside I’ll explode. Not because I want something of you in return, but because I think you deserve to know. You deserve to be happy, and at least know that one person in the world loves you.” Most recently I’ve been flashing back to a scene in Josh Radnor’s Happythankyoumoreplease, in which Tony Hale describes his one-sided love for Malin Akerman. 

However, this is not exactly a practical approach IRL. Largely because, who ever really feels that way?! Seriously. When was the last time you had a conversation with a friend, and they described this completely secret, untold love that they had for another person? And, if they do, why suddenly tell the person? 

Well, recently I’ve been posed with this dilemma. So I have this friend (yeah, yeah. I do…I swear) who, has been completely mad about one of their friends, for like a year. Something ridiculous like that. And because of the relationship status of the person involved, nothing was ever said. Just a silent, small, but totally genuine love. Sometimes you are just infatuated with people, with no real explanation to offer, other than the fact that you find them to be fantastic. Every day that you get to spend with them is the best day. Occasionally, this friend felt…uneasy, with keeping this secret. Mainly because of that ever lingering “If you love someone tell them because you don’t know if you’ll be able to tell them tomorrow blah blah blah” philosophy. And hey, what is the worst that could happen if I told them? They are awesome, and deserve to be told so. Answer: a whole lot of weird fucking things could happen! Ultimately, this friend wants to be loved back by this person…what if they don’t? What if this declaration of love turns into an inevitable rejection? In that case, would it be better to secretly love someone and never feel rejected? Problem #2:  what if this revealing of feelings changes the friendship? This friend cares so much about this person, that all they want is to be in their life. Platonic relationship or intimate—doesn’t matter. As long as they have some kind of relationship, they are happy. 

HERE IS THE GAME CHANGER: person is now single, and friend has been spending a lot of friendly time with person, because person is completely destroyed by their sudden break up. So now, the question is not only “Do I tell them?” it’s “WHEN do I tell them?” A lot can go wrong when a person is emotionally distraught. Then we get into the messy territory of rebounds, etc…yuck. 

So, the central thesis of this proposal is ultimately: should you tell someone, who has no idea, that you are in love with them? Despite consequences. OR- just keep it to yourself, and live contently knowing that you at least have the ability to love someone at a capacity you never before thought you were capable of? 

Discuss! Talk amongst yourselves and here. 

Girl Jams: Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used To Know”

Admittedly, we here at GTB have been obsessed with this song/video lately. Shout-out to awesome girl Audrey who first showed me the video. 

Girl Talk #1: Love

Love? Okay, love. Love seems an appropriate place to start.

Now bear with me, before you discard this as a “Sex and the City”, single girl ranting in her diary type blog, I assure you, it’s much more than that. 

I feel like love is an appropriate place to start for this little blog, because it’s sort of the center of it all. Again, bear with me. You can have sex without love in an attempts to get to love, you can have love and be attempting with everything you have to get to sex, you can have lust and sex and trying your damndest to avoid love. But whichever way, love still finds it’s way in there some how. Whether you seek it, covet it, are absolutely obsessed with finding it, or you avoid it at all costs, it seems to play a significant part of our social, sexual, and personal lives.

My first inquiry is this: has anyone ever actually been in love? I’m not saying in the history of the world, obviously. Clearly, John Lennon was in love with Yoko Ono to an extent and on a level that I will never be able to humanly understand. But I’m asking you, dear reader. Because I, personally, am at a point in my young, yet not inexperienced, life when I’ve begun to question if I have ever actually been in love before.

Now, there is no doubt that I’ve felt love for people. I’ve felt many different types of love for many different people. My inquisition isn’t me wondering if I’m capable of feeling love, I’m not 14 and listening to AFI or Dashboard, after all. HOWEVER, and yes it’s a big “however”, do we confuse “falling in love” with someone with simply beginning to feel/have love for them? Do we say “I LOVE you” after a significant amount of time in a relationship because it’s what we think we are supposed to be saying, after we realize we truly care about the person we are seeing? 

Here is my reasoning for propositioning this phenomena. At 24, I realize that I have said “I love you” to 3 of my “serious” boyfriends (pre legal adulthood doesn’t count, for obvious reasons). Though after we’ve been long since broken up, each time I realize, I do have love for these people, deep, important, substantial love, yet I am not IN love with any of them. And I honestly can’t look back and say that I ever truly was. Yes I felt a great amount of love for them while we were dating, but if I were truly IN love with them at a time…wouldn’t I still be today? The only people who I know that are without a doubt IN love with one another, are people like my parents who have been married for over 30 years.

So this is the question I pose to you, girls who talk. Despite all your relationship trials and tribulations, have you ever really, really, been in love? Discuss!